2012

Misattributed quotations: do you know who really said it? [quiz]

December 4, 2017

An excerpt from an OUPblog article published on 3rd December 2017, written by Susan Ratcliffe, an Associate Editor for Oxford Quotations Dictionaries.

"The seemingly simple task of asking ‘who said what’ has perhaps never been more difficult. In the digital age, quotations can be moved around, attributed, questioned, re-appropriated, and repeated in the blink of an eye. If someone is ‘widely quoted’ as saying something and it sounds more or less right, many people take this to be sufficient proof of the quotation’s origin. With this tacit approval, misquotations spread even further, in an ever-increasing pattern of misattribution and acceptance. With more data available than ever before (instantly available at the click of a mouse), such issues are ironically a result of more information – not less! ..."

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